When I looked down at my feet I gasped. On my white sneakers were three small splatters of blood. I quickly removed my shoes and rushed into the bathroom to wash them off. I scrubbed and scrubbed even after the small stains were already gone. And then I started washing my hands like they were stained with red too. I could've rubbed my flesh raw if Dominic didn't stop me. "I'm sorry, I wish they didn't involve you. They aren't like my dad though. They don't care that you don't want to be involved. They basically view it as family duty," he told me. That angered me.
"I know you don't want to hear this right now, but that man murdered one of our guys tonight. A guy I know..." he said, which made me return my attention to him. "I'm sorry," I acknowledged his loss. He nodded but said nothing else about it. 
I ended up telling him everything that happened and everything the man said. 
        "Do you think he made it up or do you think someone has betrayed us for real? What would they even get out of it?" I asked him. Dominic scratched at the back of his head then ran his fingers through the longer length of waves at the top. I could see in my cousin's face that he was tired and I told him he should rest and that I would be fine on my own. I told him I just needed to process. 
That was a lie. I was not okay. He agreed and let himself out of my room though. 
I changed into pajama shorts and a tee and when I tried to lay in bed my body wanted nothing to do with it. I decided to paint instead. Sleep wouldn't come to me until I calmed my nerves and painting was the best way to do that. It's how I expressed myself and sorted through my thoughts and emotions. 
        I painted the entire canvas black then started building up over that. I wasn't even sure what I was painting until my hand started moving in intricate strokes and colors were being squeezed out of their tubes to mix and blend. It was the image of looking through the trees of a dark forest. The tree trunks and limbs were crooked and haunting while the ground held them in their place. There was a moon off in the distance somewhere which is how you could see dark trees over dark skies like different shades of black that contrasted other blacks. 
        There was a tapping at my door a few hours later which was the early hours of morning, maybe 2am. I voiced for them to come in but I didn't leave the canvas or touch the door with my dirty fingers. Whoever had come in didn't speak right away, which forced me to look over my shoulder to see who was there. 
Standing in a pair of low hung sweatpants and no top was a very attractive looking Nicolas. Holy hell. His body was lean and tight. The tattoos and dark five o clock shadow just enhanced his cleaner flesh on his slate of abs. Like I said before...God has nothing to do with the making of this man. Sinful heavy lashed gaze, sinful V muscles that lead your eyes down to a sinful bulge in the low hung pants. Sinful that he terrifies me and yet my thighs clench for relief. 
It surprised me to see him and I placed my brush down to see what he'd say to me. "Did you just start that tonight?" he asked. I nodded yes. "You can't sleep?" he pressed on. I nodded again. 
        Nico sighed but walked further into the room until he was in perfect view of the half finished painting. "You're good" he surprised me by complimenting. "Thank you" I said and my voice sounded strange because I'd been silent for so long. "Did you need something?" I asked when he still hadn't spoken about anything in particular. His eyes left the canvas and landed on me. When he stood in front of me his height was so obvious. I had to tip my head back slightly to keep eye contact with him, otherwise I would be staring at his firm bare chest, which I was actively avoiding. 
"I thought about my first time witnessing a murder" he began to say. 
"It didn't come as a surprise to me in the way you think. I knew what my father did and who my family was. But there's still some level of shock when you watch an act play out like that for the first time. I got in my head a little bit and I knew you were doing the same tonight," he continued. He handed me a rag to clean my hands off and I realized he intended to stay for more than just a second, which made me wonder what it was he was going to say. 
I cleaned the paint off my fingers and watched as he crossed the room to sit on the light gray sofa. I followed. 
        "It was a snitch who was cooperating with the feds. I know you know Omerta, the sworn sound of silence and the code of conduct not to cooperate with feds no matter what. I was 11 or 12 I think, and my dad wanted me to learn a life lesson on loyalty and consequence. That's what he decided to show me. We went to some warehouse kind of like the one tonight and there was a tarp set down on the ground with a man tied above it. He was begging for his life and spewing out lies to try and save his ass and I remember my dad standing proudly, calmly as he listened to his pleas" Nico's eyes moved up like he was recalling an image.  
        "I thought maybe he'd had a change of heart, but instead he looked right at me and said 'Don't ever beg and don't ever snitch. La familia is the way of life and we take care of our own. This man is a rat and he's weak. You can never be weak in this business and survive', and the speech stuck. I watched him pull a gun out and shoot the man in the head. His body flew backward with the force of the bullet.. then it sagged back down while splatters of red and pink brain matter decorated the ground and the back of his head. And that was it. I watched the clean up crew come in and dispose of him like he was day old trash. They bleached everything up and we all left," he explained to me, which kept me wide eyed in awe. 
How could a father subject his son to that at 11 years old? "That's awful" I breathed. 
        "It's life Gia. You'll always be on one end of the gun. Either you're facing the barrel or you're pulling the trigger. The choice you make is up to you. I've rarely been on the other side of the trigger and I never intend to be again. Fear is the most powerful tool. It's why I'm considered the direct underboss to my father who will step down and give his empire to me. My brother will always be involved, but I've surpassed him in this line of work. Age doesn't matter when it comes to rank. It's about earnings," he continued, completely blind sighted to the horrors he was exposed to. 
No wonder why he is the way he is. He's fucked up in the head. "Is this your long form version of telling me to man up?" I asked him. 
He leaned back in his seat like he was at ease and stretched one arm across the back of the sofa. His body rippled in the most pleasant way. My body clenched in response. Low hung sweatpants meant the V line of his muscled stomach led my eyes further down. 
"I'm just reminding you that there are two sides of a pointed gun and you'll always have to choose one," he stated simply. 
        "Do you think someone is betraying us?" I had to ask him. It was a question I kept asking myself. "I don't know, but if they are, they're going to seriously regret it. No mercy for traders," Nico's face hardened. "A war wouldn't start from nothing. We've been competing for territories in the drug trade for forever. Something sparked these attacks and I think they stem from private promises. Maybe new alliances are forming either with the Russians or in our own backyard," I looked him directly in the face as I spoke. His lip twitched. 
"I thought you weren't involved in the family business?" He asked. "I know a thing or two. It's no secret that we deal with drug and gun runners and distributors, which directly overlaps with the Cartel trade," I turned my body so that my knees were almost touching Nico's wide spread legs.
"Well, we've got an even exchange of goods with the Russians so they'd be idiots to make backdoor deals. And I find it hard to believe that our own people would betray us for those pricks," he glared at the thought. "Well you said so yourself, you can never be weak in this business and survive. People want power and they do crazy things to get it. I would look in all the dark corners, not just the obvious ones. You might find something you don't like but.." I trailed off knowing I made my point. 
        "You wanna join our meeting with the head of the families and give that same speech?" he asked, whether it was sarcasm or not. I don't know why my eyes drifted to his bare torso and took in each divot and ridge of hard muscle, but I couldn't help it. It brought me to his tattoos and I found myself asking about them. "The Italian way is usually to show no affiliated tattoos or really any ink at all. What made you get all this?" 
My fingers found their way to the skin on his curved bicep and it twitched under my touch. I quickly pulled my hand back, not realizing I'd just unintentionally touched him. Nicolas looked up at my canvas then back at me. 
"There's more than one way to paint," he said. I understood what he meant.